


When the curtain falls

by readwritebeawesome



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adorable Bruce Banner, Awesome Sharon Carter (Marvel), BAMF Maria Hill, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Sharon Carter (Marvel), Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/F, Government Conspiracy, Hydra (Marvel), Lesbian Maria Hill, M/M, On the Run, POV Sharon Carter (Marvel), SHIELD is Evil, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart, ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 03:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15963797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readwritebeawesome/pseuds/readwritebeawesome
Summary: On Nick Fury’s orders, Agent 13 has tracked Bruce Banner, sometimes known as the Hulk, to a hideout in Washington. Before she can report his location back to Fury, she nearly collides with an overturned armoured truck bearing SHIELD’s symbol. A man with a masked face and a metal arm stands covered in blood. That is when she begins to see what’s wrong with the picture around her. But the further she goes to find the truth about her superiors and the organization she works for, the more deadly the situation becomes. The secrets become more sinister. And she has to pick and choose who to trust, including herself.(Based off lovelyirony’s villain SHIELD au)





	When the curtain falls

**Author's Note:**

> This work is based off an au by lovelyirony on tumblr, who is an amazing writer. Seriously go read their stuff.
> 
> The au is here: https://tmblr.co/ZrAurd2baxwI1 and here: https://tmblr.co/ZrAurd2bb3gSP

Agent 13 was good.

She was no Natasha Romanov, Maria Hill, or Peggy Carter, but she was good. Very good. This was partly due to how much trust she put in her instincts. It was her instincts that told her when to duck, when to antagonize or flatter, when to take a sudden detour to shake off pursuers.

Her instincts are what told her that unlike what Fury and the rest of SHIELD believed, Bruce Banner would not go to Calcutta to hide. She had read his file. He had practiced hiding for practically his whole life, whether from an abusive father or the military or SHIELD. He had gotten very good at it. So she had to be one step ahead of him. That was how she found him the first time. She liked to think that if she had been allowed to go with Fury, they wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

She knew how to be crafty, sneaky, cunning. You strike where the mark isn’t looking. And SHIELD was looking everywhere, except for one place: Washington. It’s understandable why they would never think Banner would be reckless enough to go there. But Sharon knew that sometimes recklessness could be the safest course of action.

So while the rest of the agents followed Fury’s orders and headed to Calcutta to cut Banner off, she slipped out and took a car to Washington.

It took her an entire three hours to find him once she got there. He was that good. But she was still better.

She found him living in a tasteful brownstone house that was unsurprisingly owned by Pepper Potts. That meant it would have the latest and best security features and furniture more expensive than everything in Sharon’s apartment combined. Possibly an AI as well.

She wouldn’t be able to go after Banner without backup. So for now, she scouted the area. Took pictures and videos of points of interest. Wrote notes on Banner’s daily routine, a lot of which seemed to include doing yoga while listening to weird podcasts very loudly.

She managed a day of this before her absence was noticed and she was ordered back to headquarters to report to Fury. She had enough data to satisfy him, so she happily packed up and left that night, earlier than necessary.

It was late when she found herself driving down an empty road. Patches of clouds blocked out some stars and currently the moon as well. Her only source of light came from her car. She was tired, but she had what Fury wanted. She had done her job, better than anyone else thought she could. The men would never stop their complaints about her, a woman, having a good position, but maybe this would soften them a bit.

“Or maybe I’ll just cut out Rumlow’s tongue next time he talks.”

She smirked to herself and turned on the radio. A cheerful reporter described the road conditions and the expected weather for the morning. Sharon listened with half an ear as she continued to drive.

The radio cut out abruptly. In a split second her headlights illuminated the vehicle in front of her.

She nearly crashed the car as she skid violently to a stop. Breathing heavily, she grabbed her gun and stepped outside.

An armored truck lay on its side. Soldiers were shouting in alarm, while others lay dead on the ground. The flashes from gunfire illuminated the symbol on the side of the truck. SHIELD.

Sharon gripped her gun and carefully approached the vehicle. She peered around the corner to the other side and felt her gut drop.

The first thing she noticed was the arm. It was made of bright, shining metal, coloured only by the red star on the shoulder and the blood that splattered up to the elbow. Then she saw the mask. Black and restricting, it brought to mind a muzzle. Finally, she saw the eyes.

They were filled with so much hurt. And anger. And  _ pain _ . They were red, like they had been crying recently.

They locked eyes with her, and for a moment the world seemed to vanish. She could taste the smell of blood, sweat, and death.

Then one of the agents, feeling brave and deciding to take advantage of the bloody individual’s distraction, charged. They barely blinked as they turned around and brought their metal hand down on his head.

Sharon stepped out and held up her gun.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Put your hands up!”

She saw the way they crouched just slightly, tilting forwards. Their hands clenched and their eyes narrowed. She knew without a doubt that they were going to kill her.

“Sputnik!”

Suddenly, their eyes rolled up into the back of their head and they collapsed. On instinct Sharon ran forwards to catch them. They were much heavier than she was expecting, and she barely broke their fall.

“Agent 13.”

She looked up and had to fight the urge to sneer. Or scowl.

“Rumlow.”

With the unconscious attacker now safely deposited on the ground, she stood up and approached him.

“What happened? Who is this? Why were they attacking you?”

“You don’t need to concern yourself with any of this, agent.”

He pointed a gun at her face.

He didn’t fire right away. He paused. To  _ smirk _ .

It was all the time she needed to duck down and strike him between the legs. During the second that he gasped in pain and surprise she came back up, grabbed his arm, and knocked him to the ground. She kicked the gun out of his hand and gave him a few good blows to the head.

He barely even had time to struggle. Now he lay unconscious on the street.

Sharon stood up and looked around for more assailants, but there were none. All the other SHIELD agents had been killed.

Her gaze fell on the mysterious attacker. They looked practically asleep with half their face pressed into the concrete and their eyes shut peacefully. Now that she looked at their clothing, she saw it had a restricting look to it. Combined with the mask/muzzle, it looked as though someone had been attempting to contain them. Like a feral animal.

She gazed around at the wreckage and bodies. Something was wrong here. Something was very wrong. Whatever it was, she couldn’t understand it. Yet.

So she focused on what she did understand. Rumlow, for example. He had attacked her. So she secured his wrists behind his back, gagged him, blindfolded him, and stuffed him in the trunk of her car. She next considered the one Rumlow had knocked out.

Whoever they were, they were clearly dangerous, and clearly a huge part of whatever this mess was. She did the same to them, but put them on the floor of the back of the car. They wouldn’t fit in the trunk with Rumlow’s pointy limbs jutting everywhere.

Then she opened the truck and crawled in. It was almost pitch black inside, so she turned on her flashlight and swept the beam across the floor. A cache of weapons had opened and spilled out. A cache of very  _ illegal _ weapons. She took four.

Computer equipment had also spilled everywhere. Some had been broken, with wires and keys spilling onto the floor. She went through what looked to be salvageable, bringing as much as she could to her car. She found the driver dead, and a woman in a doctor’s lab coat sitting in the passenger seat with her windpipe crushed. Her hand was sitting in her lap. She was still holding something.

Sharon scooped it out of her hand and held it up to see better. It was a flashdrive. There was no company symbol to be found on it. It was just sleek and white.

She took it back to her car and plugged it into her laptop.

The time estimated for it to download was three hours.

She finished packing up and started driving. She memorized the coordinates of the crash site in case she decided to alert anyone about it.

The muzzled attacker didn’t stir once. It was unnerving. She could easily believe they were dead.

The sky was still dark when her laptop dinged; it had finished downloading.

She parked on the side of the road and grabbed the laptop. A single folder had been downloaded.

It was titled ‘Winter Soldier’.


End file.
